The Bionic Wiki:Current Events Archive Jan2007
Renamed Characters, how to handle the contradictions? I've noticed that a character entry for Dr. Dolenz has been added. This has got me thinking about how to handle characters that were renamed. In the case of Dolenz, he is referred to as "Jeffrey Dolenz" in Run, Steve, Run but this changes to "Chester Dolenz" in Return of the Robot Maker. And of course, "Barney Miller" in The Seven Million Dollar Man changes to "Barney Hiller" in The Bionic Criminal. I'm of the opinion that the latter references should be treated as canon. (But of course, we'll make a note that the names changed throughout the course of the show.) — redrain85 (talk) 23:41, 17 January 2007 (UTC) :Agreed. And we can make page redirects in case anyone types in the former. — Paul (talk) 03:15, 18 January 2007 (UTC) ::Something else I was wondering about. How reliable would everyone consider IMDB to be? Should we use it in the absence of hard proof (in the form of scripts, or possibly the novels), for character name details? Because sometimes the spellings for names on IMDB, are different than what we are currently listing. Best example: IMDB lists Tami Cross instead of Tammy Cross. — redrain85 (talk) 23:26, 18 January 2007 (UTC) :::I would consider IMDb not very reliable. We've pretty much banned its mention on Muppet Wiki :) However, it can sometimes serve as a starting point for research where materials are otherwise unavailable. But yeah, too many times has it been just flat out wrong. Unlike Wikipedia, there aren't nearly as many people fact-checking and it can take up to weeks for user submitted information to be add or corrected. — Scott (talk) 01:34, 19 January 2007 (UTC) ::::I've noticed that myself... the bad guy in the BW eps of SMDM is spelled as "Joseph Ronaugh" (which I have implemented, for lack of any other references), but on TV.com, it's spelled as "Joseph Wrona"... I have *no* idea which is correct, so I've used the IMDb one... — Grace (talk) 04:06, 19 January 2007 (UTC) :::::Does anyone in the Bionic fan circles have access to scripts or other such behind-the-scenes material? Also, some character names are listed inthe credits, but not always. — Scott (talk) 05:54, 19 January 2007 (UTC) ::::::Lots of them have scripts from eBay and conventions. In fact, I think someone is selling some right now--I'll have to check. Why don't you poll the forum and see if anyone can scan their copies? — Paul (talk) 12:57, 19 January 2007 (UTC) :::::::I've got a couple of scripts that I've picked up in the past month or so (they're up again on ebay - "Bionic Beauty" and "Sister Jaime"), so you don't need to go looking for those... unfortunately, that's not where my problem lies, as far as character name spelling goes... — Grace (talk) 01:33, 20 January 2007 (UTC) Guest Stars Here I come again... :)... I just wanted to know how we wanted to do the whole "Guest Stars" thing for each episode - just the names during the opening credits, or names during the closing credits as well, including the generic characters? I'm working on the BW eps of SMDM (still), and I'm going through the closing credits right now, and I'm wondering if I should be worrying about the characters such as "1st Nurse", "2nd Nurse" and "Attendant". I'm also wondering if we do decide to list these people, do we want to bother with links to elsewhere in the wiki for them, like we're doing right now for the major characters? IOW - should I bother with 1st Nurse or simply just "1st Nurse"... if that makes any sense... for right now, I'm just leaving them unlinked. — Grace (talk) 06:36, 17 January 2007 (UTC) :Great question, Grace! The template I'm developing for episode pages will have a section for full opening and closing credits. So, yes, indeed, "1st Nurse" will have her place on our Bionic Wiki. ;) — Paul (talk) 14:52, 17 January 2007 (UTC) ::If you're developing a template for the episodes Paul, might I suggest some headings? :) I was thinking of Trivia, Nitpicks, and Scenes Deleted In Syndication sections in addition to the others. Those are the areas I plan to contribute to the most, at the moment. — redrain85 (talk) 15:48, 17 January 2007 (UTC) :::Way ahead of you, Rod (or perhaps in lieu of you!) I was thinking of a header name that would encompass all of that. How about Deconstructed or Disassembled. Originally, I was going with the standards like, Production Notes but then figured we may want to use stylized headers reflective of the show. Another: instead of Summary how about Debrief? Just a thought. — Paul (talk) 17:14, 17 January 2007 (UTC) ::::I'll use generic headings for now, but I do like the idea of headings done in the style of the show. I'll try to use my imagination and get back to you with other suggestions. Though the ones you've suggested already sound good. :) — redrain85 (talk) 17:32, 17 January 2007 (UTC) Mass Contributions I have a question for you guys... I've started entering in quotes for the BW episode of SMDM, and I can already tell that it's going to be frickin' *massive*... I've got quotes coming out of my ears for the two episodes (although it looks like you've got it condensed down to one "movie"), which is going to double the size of the quote contribution. The problem, I'm finding, is just how unwieldy this is going to be. I've entered in seven quote passages, and bloody hell, what a mess. I've alluded to the problem with spacing before as well, which is also causing a bit of a problem with how the final product is presented. I must admit to being a little reluctant to enter anymore quotes in because of this problem. I am done with the quote passages for "Welcome Home, Jaime", so take a look at those, and what I've entered in for the BW ep, and lemme know if there's a way we can make them look more presentable.— Grace (talk) 04:49, 16 January 2007 (UTC) :*There are some tricks we could employ for very long sections of articles. One that immediately comes to mind is a "hide/show" javascript. This would allow only the first two or three quotes to be seen, initially. The visitor would then have the option to view more by clicking on a tag located near the header. :*Another idea is to use bullets for each line in a quote or block of dialogue (like I've done here with this whole reply). See the Help page here: http://bionic.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Wiki_markup :*You might also reconsider some of your quotes. Don't get me wrong, Grace, I think the ones you've shared with us are equitable. But I think what makes a memorable quote special is that it resonates with fans and stands apart from the rest. Too many, and we could lose the forest for the trees. :*And, speaking personally, I've never subscribed to the fairly recent IMDB mentality that a dialogue qualifies as a quote, per se. But that's just me.— Paul (talk) 15:09, 16 January 2007 (UTC) :::A show/hide feature might work well for quotes. You really don't want to inundate episode pages with quotes I wouldn't think. Especially where there aren't really any episode summaries yet. The wiki just starts to look like a collection of quotes. On Muppet Wiki we used to do quotes all over the place until we figured out how hugely subjective they are. What's funny or poignant to one, is not so much to another. But there might be a better compromise here that leads to a policy for the wiki about how and what to have in place for quotes. Perhaps a voting system or something. But then, there may be other more important things to spend time voting on. It's hard to tell at this point with the content still only slowly growing and the community being built. — Scott (talk) 17:07, 16 January 2007 (UTC) ::::I can deal with that - paring down what I've got, that is... however, that's still not going to solve the overall problem for sheer bulk. How exactly would this show/hide thingy work? Is there anything in the wiki help page that explains this? I didn't see anything myself... — Grace (talk) 20:38, 16 January 2007 (UTC) :::::On a related note: I would like to add trivia and nitpicks to the episode descriptions over time, which would also add quite a bit to their length. What are everyone's thoughts on this? — redrain85 (talk) 00:54, 17 January 2007 (UTC) ::::::My recommendations to all would be to add everything you've got to any article at this point. The wiki's current infancy is the perfect time to chuck a bunch of stuff up on the drawing board, and see what sticks. The sticking of course will be a combination of how things look all put together and the view from the community in retrospect. So yeah, do now and ask later I'd say. — Scott (talk) 02:25, 17 January 2007 (UTC) :::::::Alrighty... you asked for it ... :) — Grace (talk) 02:32, 17 January 2007 (UTC) ::::::::Scott took the words right out of my mouth. I say add it all! Later we can step back and see what works and what doesn't. As for formatting and design -- we'll address those issues as we go along. Can you hear that?--it's the crackling of creativity in the air! ;) — Paul (talk) 03:07, 17 January 2007 (UTC) Episode Titles There's a really super-picky English teacher part of me that would like to see a slight change in how the episode titles are presented right now. I don't want to see articles as a episode header - for example, "The Vega Influence" should be presented as "Vega Influence, The". This'll make things easier for alphabetization purposes - otherwise I think we're going to find a logjam of episodes starting with "The". As I said - just call me picky ... :) — Grace (talk) 05:44, 12 January 2007 (UTC) :Hey, we love super-picky English teacher-y parts of people! Especially on a wiki. My spellcheck is my friend! ;) Ironically, I was giving this very idea some thought as I saw Scott busily updating the episode lists (thanks, Scott!). :Ultimately my feeling is this: category type should inform the spelling of the content. All the episode guides, which I've examined, that are categorized by airdate (my personal preference), or production date, both definite and indefinite articles in the titles remain unchanged. I think this should be true of our wiki. :However, if it's easy to do (Scott?) I think an alphabetical list should also be created. I'm sure there are many fans who know the title of an episode but can't remember in which season it aired. Alphabetized episode lists were made for these moments! In this case, I absolutely agree that all articles should be re-placed. -- Alex7000 13:52, 12 January 2007 (UTC) ::Hi, Grace! Paul's right, it's great to have super-nitpicky English-teacher types on a project like this. Right now, the episodes in Category:Bionic Woman episodes are ordered by airdate. If you look at the edit tab of any episode page, you can see how this numbering system was achieved. Basically, the wiki software allows for articles to be ordered in the categories by any method we want. For example, look at Category:Bionic Woman characters and you'll see that Jaime Sommers is alphabetized under S''' rather than J. Again, you can look at the code under the edit tab on her page to see how that was done. — Scott (talk) 14:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC) :::Okay, take a look at Category:Bionic Woman episodes now (you may have to hit Refresh)... there's an alphabetical list linked at the beginning of the category. — Scott (talk) 14:14, 12 January 2007 (UTC) Spoiler and Non-Spoiler Summaries There is simply no possible way to avoid spoilers in the episode summaries. Nor should we try--I think an encyclopedia should contain the most detailed and spoilerific summaries one can find. However, I think a good idea is to have brief non-spoiler summaries, too. Call it a teaser. Enough info to excite a reader. And then if she wants to continue to the meat, she can. -- Alex7000 14:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC) :I like the way Memory Alpha does it (on their fleshed out episode pages anyway). Each page begins with a brief summary of what the episode is about, then a more detailed one follows under an appropriately named header. Wikipedia has a spoilers template to caution against reading things you may not want to, but they're wikipedia and have millions of contributors and readers. Bionic Wiki, like Muppet Wiki, is going to have a much smaller target, and it's easier to establish that episode pages are going to have spoilers. In other words, when someone comes here, it should be understood that there will be spoilers. For example, Josh Lang is just a short article right now. But doing his biography justice would include writing everythign we know about him, including his fate at the end of the episode. Avoiding spoilers is limiting in this capacity, but I think it's a given that the end of any such long article is going to include what happens. I'm probably babbling now and not making sense. — Scott (talk) 17:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC) ::Actually, I like what you've done. Those few sentences you wrote for those particular episodes are perfect teasers. They're a good example of what I'm talking about. Alex7000 18:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC) Members vs. Articles Why are items within in categories referred to as 'members'?--why not 'articles' or 'items'? -- Alex7000 14:03, 11 January 2007 (UTC) :I'm not sure what you mean. At Category:Active talk pages, I see them referred to as subcategories and articles. — Scott (talk) 17:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC) ::Look at the list that loads when you click on Category Index. Alex7000 18:27, 11 January 2007 (UTC) :::Oh, that one. Um... I don't know. — Scott (talk) 18:33, 11 January 2007 (UTC) Wiki Name Change? Brainstorm: '''Bionipedia! Just a thought... -- Alex7000 14:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC) :Sounds fun, that's entirely up to you as the founder :) — Scott (talk) 17:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC) name references So as to be consistent throughout the pages here, is there a preference as to how we want to reference character names in an article? For example, on Jaime Sommers, I've already started saying "Sommers did this... and Sommers did that." I would strongly recommend the last name be used in regard to performers in this encyclopedic context, but for characters, would it feel better to say "Steve did this... and Jaime did that...."? Thoughts? — Scott (talk) 06:32, 11 January 2007 (UTC) :Oh, absolutely! Surnames should always be used when citing actors or any real person. Using the familiar for the characters I don't have a problem with. I know I'll be calling them Steve & Jaime and Oscar and Rudy, etc. We should also allow the tone of the show or episode to inform our citations; I would never refer to Dr. Franklin as Carl! And I would never refer to Callahan as Peggy or Margaret. -- Alex7000 13:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC) Characters category So, I have a few ideas on how to handle the categories for characters. The simplest way would be to create a category called Characters, and drop everyone into it. If we want to be more specific and allow for easier browsing, we could place BW characters into a Bionic Woman characters category and 6M$M characters into another with both of those existing as sub-categories to Characters. That specificity would then leave us with open options as to where we can put characters that were exclusive to the TV movies (and other sources -- were there comic books and novels?). Or, such non-specific characters could just go into the main Characters category. Alternatively, for example, we could put Josh Lang into Six Million Dollar Man characters AND the main characters category so they could be found either way. If that's what we decide, then naturally 6M$M wouldn't continue to be a sub-category to Characters, as it would be pointless. That's the way we do it on Muppet Wiki: Kermit is categorized under Muppet Characters AND Muppet Show Characters AND Sesame Street Characters. Thoughts? — Scott (talk) 22:20, 10 January 2007 (UTC) : So basically the choices are: :# One top-level category containing a huge list. :# One top-level category containing multiple sub-categories. :# Multiple top-level categories. :Well, there's really no difference between option 2 and 3. If the same character appears in both shows, we still have to list them in each category (like you did with Kermit). With the Bionic shows it doesn't happen all that often, so I'd vote for the sub-categories. And you're right, we could then have sub-cats for the comics, movies, toys, books, etc. --Alex7000 23:10, 10 January 2007 (UTC) ::That sounds logical. So, would we put Kate Mason in TV Movies characters, or something different which combined characters from other sources? — Scott (talk) 23:22, 10 January 2007 (UTC) :::Yes. But I don't think we need "Tv Movies" as a sub of Characters. I think the name of the movie would suffice right alongside the names of the two shows -- does that make sense? So under the main heading of Characters, we would have "The Bionic Woman," The Six Million Dollar Man," "The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman," "Bionic Showdown," and "Bionic Ever After." What say you? -- Alex7000 14:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC) ::::So, Category:The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman characters? It's a bit long IMO, but it's specific. — Scott (talk) 17:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC) :::::And what's wrong with a long category name? ;) We could shorten it but still keep it formal. Like, "Return Of (1987)" Alex7000 18:33, 11 January 2007 (UTC) ::::::Nothing! A wiki is not, after all, paper :) — Scott (talk) 18:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC) :::::::I recently submited an article about "Fembots" and will soon write one on the Venus Probe. Those articles hardly classify as "characters". Should we add a new catagory and name it "technology" or something to that effect ? Mark